Broadband News

Metronet launch new pricing model for their ADSL service

Metronet has launched a 'Pay as You Go' ADSL service for both home and
business users. The service rather than having a flat rate tariff, has a minimum and maximum cost per quarter, with level of bandwidth used controlling the intermediate pricing.

The pricing is attractive for people who use their ADSL intermittently, for example people who travel a lot and thus are not always at home, but do not want the expense of paying for ADSL when
not using it. The PayGo 500 which is a 512kbps product starts at £45+VAT per quarter, and the highest cost will be £77.97+VAT per quarter. The actual price you pay is likely to be
somewhere in between and is calculated on the amount of bandwidth you use, the first 450MB (MegaByte) is free in each quarter, after that 0.25 pence/MB is charged until you reach 13,638MB
(13.6GB), when you simply pay the capped price of £77.97+VAT. It is worth noting that if your useage exceeds the 13.6GB you simply pay the capped price. For those people who like to think
in montly terms for billing the PayGo 500 works out at £15+VAT a month, and has a 150MB allowance, and rises to £25.99+VAT in the worst case scenario. A user with an average habit of
100MB per day over the whole billing quarter would end up paying £22.12+VAT a month.

The amount of free bandwidth varies according to the product speed you purchase, the 2Mbps product has limits of 2700MB free bandwidth for £270 per quarter and a cap of 74,688MB which costs
£449.97.

It is an interesting approach to the problems of controlling bandwidth used on a product, and whilst it may not appeal to all users, their is potential savings for some users. This system if
managed well should allow Metronet to offer a good quality of service in that people can have the maximum speed when they do want it. As always a Broadband service is not just the price, one must
look at the whole package, which includes static IP, 0845 backup account and a three month contract.